This farm the Schotts worked was fought, kicked, and gouged for by Henry’s grandparents. His grandmother and grandfather had both of their funerals in the room just downstairs, which was the parlor just off the front door. Every person that had died in Schott family since they came from Pittsburgh had their funeral at the foot of the steps.
The caskets were brought in by sons, uncles, and nephews and lowered with a dull thud onto the buffet table that was stationed in the center of the front hall. It wasn’t a big room but it was the easiest for loved ones to enter the house, view the body, and then make their way back out. If they were close enough to the family and room allowed, they would sit and share stories and condolences till they could not take the grief anymore. With wobbly legs and trembling lips they would vacate the house but not before one last look at the deceased.
Henry always noticed everything even when he was just a small boy. Every person that walked through that door, no matter if he was the deceased person’s son or just a casual acquaintance, each person, whether with tear-soaked eyes or pupils as dry as bone, each person would look back as if he was wishing one last farewell as the soul departed.
Henry got to his feet and followed his father down the stairs. As Henry’s boots hit the top step of the stairs, the aroma of fresh coffee wafted up the stairs. Instantly, Henry felt a little more like he was home. He used to sit at the table and watch as his father, grandfather, mother, grandmother, and his older siblings sat about and drank coffee. Henry always thought it was a vile and disgusting liquid. It was always black and harsh, just as thick as oil and bitter enough to make his stomach turn and his face scrunch until his lips were close to his brows.
He rounded the bottom step and the sizzle from the griddle could be heard as the bacon popped in the cast iron skillet. After the bacon was done, the eggs were poured on top of the grease and there was nothing that tasted as good as Mother’s eggs cooked in hot bacon grease. The plates were filled with eggs, bacon, and two pieces of white toast which were slathered in butter. The toast was still warm enough that the butter just melted from a square chunk into a river of gold that filled the nooks and grannies. They ate like prisoners and not a person at the table spoke. Within minutes the bread was used to sop up the last of the grease. Then it was time to get off to the fields because the sun was already sparking orange and red across the far hills.
A couple of Henry’s brothers stayed close to home and raked one of the fields closest to the house. Henry’s sisters went down to the barn and tended to the small animals--the chickens, goats, ducks, and pigs--and Henry and his father headed to the furthest part of the farm looking to mend a couple lengths of the fence.
They hitched up a horse to a wagon and started out, which was cheaper than having to pay for gas for the tractor--and all things considered, Henry was fine with staying away from that tractor. Even as they pulled away from the back door of the house, he could see that old steel contraption and the teeth on the wheels looked like they were staring at Henry. He could swear he heard an evil laugh from their bright obnoxious teeth. He felt a shiver crawl up and down his spine as they drove away and Henry averted his eyes as if the teeth of that old tractor were an eclipse.
Henry and his father had driven a good ways from the house and not a word was spoken between them. It wasn’t far back in Henry’s conscious memory and he wondered why his father had given him such a cold welcome the night before. It was the first thought that rang into his head as he rose just before dawn. He had not been able to get it out of his mind.
"The way this wagon pitches and kinda rolls feels a lot like the way it feels when you’re on the ocean in a ship." Henry tried to speak to his father, which had never been an easy thing for anyone in the family. Even Mrs. Schott just took it for granted that he was a quiet rather surly man.
"Huh," Mr. Schott grunted, his lips barely moving as he held the reins of the horse and stared blankly straight ahead.
It was only a few more minutes and they arrived at the edge of the field which was a barren strip of land marred by rows and rows of dead corn and hay. It was now just a dry tract of dirt with tracks of corn stalks sheared off, sticking up from the ground like stubby knives for as far as you could see, just rows and rows of dirty yellow stubs.
Mr. Schott climbed into the back of the wagon and started handing down tools to Henry. A section of the fence by no one’s fault had broken apart, an act of God or maybe Mother Nature, but Mr. Schott liked to keep everything on the farm in perfect shape. If he left this alone, it would be a travesty to his German heritage and the fact that it just wasn’t right.
Henry was a man now. He had lived in Alaska and fought the freezing cold and the bears of the forest. He had trampled up and down the mountains of Europe fighting off the Germans and his own delusional sergeant. He had loved and lost and traveled the ocean to come home, but to his father, he was still that little boy who couldn’t drive the tractor.
Henry stood for a good bit of the morning handing his father tools as Mr. Schott reconstructed the fence with the tenacity and precision of a surgeon. After all, these fences were his arteries and veins. All the while Henry felt the anger and hurt building within him--he just couldn’t understand his father’s blatant obtuseness towards him. Wasn’t he proud? Didn’t he want to thank Henry for his service and for protecting his family?
Henry knew this was nothing new. Mr. Schott never really showed much affection towards anyone. Henry only saw his father embrace Mrs. Schott once, and that was when his little brother died and even then, his embrace was purely out of her need, not from his love and devotion. Finally, Henry had to know.
"Father, why have you been so cold to me since I returned?" Henry blurted, causing his father to slip, and instead of cutting the wire, he rammed the knife right through the fleshy webbing between his thumb and first finger. Blood began to seep from the wound and then Mr. Schott started to cuss and growl in German. Henry had heard those words from him before and they were never associated with good things.
Mr. Schott curled his fingers into a fist and it was now gushing with blood. Henry could feel a queasiness bubbling within him and suddenly, without warning, a vivid image of the morgue back in Europe flashed past his face. The images were real enough to make him shake his head but the pictures just kept coming till he was unaware of where he was as he staggered backwards. His consciousness was growing thin but he could hear his father’s jumbled German-English words grinding into his ears.
"You vant me to tank you for killing my people, our people?" Mr. Schott’s tone was murderous and filled with hatred. "You did not protict our homeland, you destroyed it--you little bastird!"
Henry’s mind was spinning and he could feel himself losing grip with reality. He looked up from the swirling ground and looked upon his father’s face which was warped and bizarre. Mr. Schott’s body seemed small and his head and face were larger than life and they pulsated, coming closer and closer to Henry. Henry stumbled backwards and then started to run toward the sloping hills near his house, never looking back, though his father’s screams almost pushed him in the back as he lurched and fell in the barren fields. Soon his father was just a spec on the dusty horizon behind him and he could no longer hear the bellowing--but his mind was not free.
In his malaise he stumbled and went to the ground, often being cut by the razor sharp shoots of corn stalks that protruded from the earth. With each drop of blood and cracking of the stalks, his mind reeled. Hallucinations of gunshots snapped in the night, bombs burst down on the cobble streets, and Mary’s blood dotted the cragged rocks.
He arrived at home and lumbered over the steps of the porch, up the stairs, and into his room. He was numb and deaf to any sound, void of any touch, and the images that haunted his nights now started to intrude on his day. He collapsed into bed. He did not move. He simply stared up at the ceiling.
A single glance out the window brought back the sense of war and blood dripped from his hands, elbows, and knees. A
slight breeze came up the stairs and swept the smell of blood into his nostrils and the nightmares started all over—again! The sounds, the smells, and the images darted around the room until Henry’s mind could no longer take the onslaught, and the exhaustion closed his eyes and he faded till he passed-out.
The sunlight shifted across his room and the eastern slanting golden rays were now coming from the west. Henry awoke and blinked his eyes furiously. He looked down and a small puddle of blood had started to pool on the floor below his hand. The gashes on his arms had clotted and the dribbles of blood had crusted across his palm and fingers. He slowly got to his feet and took an old rag and wrapped it around his hand. He stepped to the wash basin which was in the corner of his room and dabbed the rag with cool water. He wiped the blood to a smear and cleaned his hands of the heavy residue.
He held his hand up to the light of the window and gazed deeply into the palm of his hand. He knew the blood was gone but the more he gazed at his palm, the more he still imagined crimson stains on his hand. He stood there and scrubbed his hand until the skin was raw, till the redness came from his own vicious and repeated movements. He washed hard enough and long enough that the light of the window became dim and he could hear people gather downstairs for dinner.
He took another cloth and began rubbing it around his neck, face, and arms. From his closet he took out the dress uniform the army had given him. He laid it across the bed and even in the dim light the brass buttons still glowed, and across the chest of his jacket were a sea of ribbons and pennants. As he looked at each one, it reminded him of the places he’d been and the morose things he had seen. At first, a simple and resilient grin crested across his face, but after a few seconds he was only left with an unsettled grief as he quickly started to get dressed.
Henry walked out of his room and started to descend the steps where he could hear the stiff silence of the dinner table. When he was growing up, it was just normal for no one to speak at the dinner table, and that was the way their father wanted it. Just the occasional grunt or motioning of a hand to pass a plate was the only thing shared.
Henry came around the corner and all eyes looked up at him and each face had a pleasant smile upon it all except, of course, for Mr. Schott. Henry took the long walk around the table to his seat that was just one chair in from his father. His old man never even bothered to look up from his pork chops and gravy. Henry sat down and looked across the table at his mother.
"You look very nice, Heinriche," Mrs. Schott said softly with full reassurance. Henry nodded back politely. The tension was now palpable and it hung over the table like a fog of aggression. Pushing things around his plate and taking a few bites every couple minutes, Henry more or less played with his food, but not Mr. Schott. The man was just about as thin as a rail but when he was a boy, he had broad shoulders and heavy thighs. At his current age his shoulders had narrowed and his arms had grown thin but he ate as if he was still a teenager. He never looked up from his plate. He just motioned and snorted as usual.
"Boy!" He sat back from his plate, which typically never happened until he was done There were still several scraps upon his plate, and at this sight, all at the table lowered their heads and looked deeply into their food, not daring to make eye contact with the old man. "Vy you wear dat suit at my table?" He tilted his head, slightly sliding his jaw to the side and glaring at one of his middle sons. Shoulders were tight enough around the table that it was often hard to tell who people were looking at or talking to, but this intense glare was obvious for all to figure out.
"It’s my dress uniform, Papa. The army gave it to me." Henry tried to sound proud but not boasting.
"Uniform, huh?" Mr. Schott smacked his tongue against his teeth trying to get every ounce of morsel from his food. "Vhat color is dat?" He feigned interest and Henry thought he might actually be starting to melt from his bitterness.
"I think they call it olive drab, Papa," Henry exchanged with a sliver of a smile, just enough you could see the teeth glimmering out from under his thin lips.
Mr. Schott looked at Henry for several seconds and tilted his head up and down as if he were inspecting the garment. Henry puffed out his chest to make his ribbons and metals shine in the light of the dining room. He even turned slightly towards his father, edging his shoulders away from his brothers that sat on either side of him.
His brothers, and frankly, everyone at the table, just looked at Henry with astonishment since their father never acknowledged any of them—ever. The one time was when little Elmer died and they took his place setting away from the table. To actually be recognized at the table was a great thing, a monumental thing, but Mr. Schott took his time and then he nodded slightly. His face was still as plain and nondescript as ever, though.
"Olive drab, huh?" Mr. Schott commented with a bit of question to his still angry tone.
"Yes, Papa!" Henry was now in full regalia. The candor had left his voice and he was the peacock showing his feathers, finally.
"Dat is de ugliest color I’ve ever seen! Dat whole jacket and pants are going to make me puke! Take dat off at da dinner table! Go put on a decent shirt and pants!" Mr. Schott fumed.
The air was suddenly sucked from the room and the mask of promise that had started to develop over Henry’s face was ripped from him, tossed onto the floor, and stomped upon by his father’s hateful words. Mr. Schott never snickered or tried to make a mockery of Henry, his wartime son. Mr. Schott was just mean for the sake of hurting his son. He was always mean, but now Henry had given him a reason to be angry.
Henry did not know what to do. He was frozen in shock. He slowly moved his chair back from the table and shook his head at his father who, of course, had just gone back to gnawing on a pork chop bone, sucking viciously the gristle. Henry started to walk towards the stairs and he looked back with venomous eyes--but his father never even looked up. He glanced at his mother but all eyes at the table were still buried in their plates. Not a soul dared look up as Henry took his cap and started for the front door.
"Heinriche," his mother called out with tenderness in her sympathetic tone.
Even so, Henry just walked out the door and slammed it behind him. All eyes at the table looked out the sides of their heads, trying to see if their papa had anything to say about his wartime son. When the door slammed, Mr. Schott just grunted, and it was hard to tell if it was content for the gristle of the bone or ambivalence toward Henry. Mr. Schott was a hard man to read, to say the least.
"I need a drink," Henry muttered to himself as he stomped down the driveway and started to town in the last couple wisps of twilight as darkness enveloped the land.
2
The bell above the door at the butcher shop called out as the metal clapper clanged around inside the hollow shell of the bell. Angela slipped in the door as its heavy weight pressed it closed. Two rather regal looking women turned to see who had entered the establishment and turned away just about as quickly when they saw the homely misses enter, something Angela had become accustomed to in her rather humble life. Uncle Johnny looked up over the top of the meat case and smiled widely but there was something about the look upon his usually jolly face.
"Hi, Sis," Johnny said. He circled around the case, wiping his blood-stained hands off on his apron as he walked briskly past the two customers.
"Sir!" one of them remarked with a turned-up nose. "I am in a bit of a hurry," she fumed.
"That’s nice," Johnny shot back with indifference. "This will take just a second."
"Rude!" the woman snorted. "All the manners of a butcher, I guess," she remarked rudely, shooting a disapproving glance at her fellow patron. And they both shook their heads with delight for their animosity.
Uncle Johnny took Angela by the elbow and led her into the storeroom. Angela had an obvious nervous twitch to her body and as her brother held her elbow lightly, he could feel the tension in her body. Her arms and shoulder were made of stone.
"Is everything okay?" Johnny asked An
gela, knowing full well the depth of her discouragement.
"Yes." Angela was able to shake off her genuine tumult as she had done for many years of her marriage. She paced back and forth about the small room, never looking her brother in the face. Her lips were pursed as she held her arms crossed tightly over her bosom and she stalked like a tiger in the brush.
"Obviously things are not okay, Angela." Johnny was hesitant to talk to his sister about the cleaver he had found and Angela was just as reluctant about relaying her tale to her brother. It was a virtual stalemate of nerves and worries. They were two bulls just as stubborn as the days are long and each cut from the same cloth. They battled to keep their secrets but wanted deeply to share their regrets and were just too proud to talk.
"Johnny," Angela muttered, stopping her pacing as her treads nearly wore a track into the wooden floors of the room. "I need work," she shared. Her tone was wounded and lacking pride. She was ashamed to be crawling to her own flesh and blood just to be able to feed her family. "I just can’t go back to Happy Days," she lamented as a sniffle started to mar her tone. "I’ll work very hard, I’ll never be late!" She started to pound her fist into the mitt of her palm until the smacking of flesh echoed through the small cave-like room. "I’ll work till you tell me to leave, and even then you’ll have to push me out the door. I’ll be pleasant with people, all people, and the girls, they’ll help, too, if you need it. I’ll come in the morning as early as you need, I’ll work the weekend, I’ll never take breaks, I’ll never eat . . . breakfast, lunch, or dinner!" she ranted. Tears were now flowing over her cheeks which were blushing every shade of red imaginable. "I just can’t go back to Happy Days. . . I just can’t," she sobbed.
Blood, Dreams, and Olive Drab (Pride & Promise) Page 21